


i'll give it to someone special

by apollothyme



Category: Marvel
Genre: Christmas, Cooking, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, Johnny, it’s Peter,” he coughed, trying to clear his throat, “I was wondering if you had any plans for Christmas’ Eve? I know you probably do, with the rest of the Four or some other people, but I just— Aunt May wanted— I mean <i>I</i> wanted to invite you anyway in case, you know, you don’t have plans and you’d like to come over,” he let out a little laugh, too self-deprecating, too honest. “We’re having roast beef and MJ should come over as well. We usually open presents after dinner so, yeah… I’m sorry, I’m probably wasting your time. Call me back if you want to come over and have a great Christmas.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll give it to someone special

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [janekburza](http://janekburza.tumblr.com/), who prompted "Johnny/Peter - cooking for christmas". I'm sorry to say this fic includes very little cooking (oops), but it does include many mentions of Christmas? Hope you still like it, dear!
> 
> Not beta'ed so all mistakes are mine and mine alone. Any critiques, comments, reviews or basic spell-checks are appreciated. Merry Christmas everyone! x

“You should call him.”

“Aunt May, he probably already has plans with his family. The Fantastic Four like to go away around this time of the year,” Peter said, slouching against the wall.

“Yes, but they haven’t gone anywhere yet, have they? You were with them just yesterday. Who knows, they might only celebrate on Christmas’ day. You can invite him to come over for Christmas’ Eve.”

“He’s Johnny Storm, he probably has like, a million other plans,” Peter complained, waving his hands in the air as he slouched even further down the wall.

“You don’t know that unless you call!” his aunt argued, picking up his phone and waving it in front of Peter’s face

“Aunt May—” Peter tried to say before his aunt shoved his cell phone against his chest and gave him a stern look that ended all discussion.

“Peter Parker, you will call your friend right this second and ask him if he wants to come over for dinner on Christmas Eve, or you’ll be peeling potatoes until the new year, understood?”

“Yes,” Peter said, sighing before he grabbed the phone and left the kitchen to make the call.

He didn’t see the point. Johnny would either be spending the holidays with his family or somewhere fancy, possibly both, not in Peter’s old house in a corner of Manhattan. Still, Aunt May wanted him to call, and it wasn’t like Peter didn’t want to have Johnny for dinner.

Peter laughed bitterly at that thought. No, he didn’t have any problems with Johnny coming over. In fact, if it was up to him, Johnny would be over all the time, day and night.

He was such an idiot that he had to go and fall for the Human Torch, of all people.

There were cracks all over his phone’s case, numerous scratches on the screen from the many times Peter had been careless with it, had let it fall on the ground from twenty feet in the air while he swung from building to building through New York City. It was actually kind of a miracle the brick—it was an appropriate name, either that or prehistoric excuse for a cell phone—still worked.  Peter ran a finger over one of the cracks, slowly, feeling the dip in the plastic with the smooth skin of his fingertip.

Peter’s cell phone could be a metaphor for his life. Some kind of minimalistic, superficial vision on how something so small and useful could bend and twist, be worn paper thin by the years, but still refuse to break no matter the situation. Tony Stark would be proud of him if he heard Peter talk about himself like that.

It was poetic as well, right? Peter had never been very good at English in high school.

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushed his bangs up—they were getting too long, he would have to go get them cut soon—until they were sticking in the air. He was avoiding making the call.

See, that was the stupidest part, the part where it was just a phone call, just a casual, obligations-free invitation for Christmas Eve dinner at the Parker household. It was nothing special. Their only other guest would be MJ and they’d be trading gifts between each other after dinner. Compared to what Johnny was used to, it probably looked trivial.

Johnny would refuse his invitation, apologize and say he had other plans and Peter would let it be.

It was a simple dinner invitation. Peter was the one making a storm in a cup of water, blowing everything out of proportion as he couldn’t help think about the implications of what it’d mean if Johnny actually said yes.

Idiot. He was such an idiot for letting himself fall in love again. You’d think he’d learn from his past mistakes, but if you thought that you’d be wrong because Peter Parker has two majors, one in Biology and another in idiocy.

He pressed the number ‘7’ until the call connected. They didn’t call each other enough to be on each other’s speed dials, but Peter wasn’t close with that many people, and Johnny was the person he went to whenever he was in trouble and needed the Fantastic Four to help (also he was Johnny, and of course that meant something to Peter).

The call went straight to voicemail, which, yeah. Not surprising. Johnny was a busy person, Peter knew that.

He ended up stumbling over what he wanted to say, only got what he wanted to say out because he knew Aunt May was in the other room and could hear him.

“Hey, Johnny, it’s Peter,” he coughed, trying to clear his throat, “I was wondering if you had any plans for Christmas’ Eve? I know you probably do, with the rest of the Four or some other people, but I just— Aunt May wanted— I mean _I_ wanted to invite you anyway in case, you know, you don’t have plans and you’d like to come over,” he let out a little laugh, too self-deprecating, too honest. “We’re having roast beef and MJ should come over as well. We usually open presents after dinner so, yeah… I’m sorry, I’m probably wasting your time. Call me back if you want to come over and have a great Christmas.”

When he returned to the kitchen, the look Aunt May gave him was a little knowing, and Peter forced himself to push the call out of his mind. It was almost Christmas, and they had yet to fully decorate the house, a true tragedy in Peter’s opinion.

“I’ll go get the lights, you get the reindeers.”

“Oh, Peter, not the reindeers again. They’re so much trouble.”

“Aunt May!” Peter gasped, feigning outrage, “are you suggesting we celebrate the merriest time of the year without the reindeers on top of our merry roof?”

“Last year half of them fell off!” Aunt May complained. She threw her hands in the air, but was already heading towards the cupboard under the stairs where they kept their cheap, plastic, and frankly hideous reeinders Uncle Ben had bought on a garage sale years ago.

“So? I’ll just put them all up again,” Peter replied, laughing and heading towards the attic. Their decorations were never the prettiest, most original or most extravagant in their street, but they were theirs and that was all that mattered.

* * *

 

The next day, only four days until Christmas, Johnny didn’t call back.

Nor did he call back on the day after that, at which point Peter lost any hope of getting an answer from him and pushed any and all thoughts of Johnny out of his mind. It wasn’t an easy task, Peter had known Johnny for over six years, and the man had crawled underneath his skin and found himself a place inside Peter’s heart like some kind of killer parasite. Pushing him out seemed impossible at this point, but at least Peter could always try to ignore his existence.

Aunt May stopped asking about it two days before Christmas, to which Peter was grateful.

They didn’t need Johnny anyway.

(Even if it’d be oh so very nice to have him there, as one of the few people who know Peter’s secret identity as Spider-Man, and as a friend.)

* * *

There was a knock on the door a little over four in the afternoon.

Peter was sitting on the couch, watching a disney movie for kids and munching on some candy while Aunt May wrapped a couple of last minute presents for their neighbours in her room. He stared at the door, wondering who it was. They were only expecting MJ for dinner, but that wasn’t for another two hours.

Peter was a little wary when he got up to open the door. He always was nowadays. There too many threats constantly looming by for him not to be extra cautious whenever he could, which was why he took feather-light steps and took this time getting to the door in case any warning bells wanted to go off inside his head.

None did, but they definitely should have, considering getting a little warning on who was at the doorstep would have been welcome.

To say Peter was shocked to see Johnny at his doorstep, a little wet from the snow, grinning sheepishly from ear to ear as he held a mostly dry cardboard box against this chest was a huge understatement.

“You came,” Peter said for lack of anything else to say, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, hum,” Johnny replied, looking away in… embarrassment? That was new, “Sorry I didn’t call you back, I didn’t know if was going to make it here on time. It’s alright if you want me to go, but you should probably keep this anyway.”

Johnny handed the box to Peter, who caught it on reflex. He peered inside cautiously, and lifted a dubious eyebrow afterwards. “You brought cake?”

“I brought cake,” Johnny said, rolling back on the balls of his feet. He didn’t look like himself; there was something more grounded in his movements, almost shy.

Peter rarely got to see this side of Johnny Storm, and he had no idea what to do with it, so he decided to do what Aunt May would do, since that was always a good idea.

“Well then,” Peter said, laughing at how surreal the whole situation was, “come on in. Anyone who brings cake is invited for dinner.”

“Really? I’ll start bringing cake more often then,” Johnny replied, flashing Peter a camera-stopping smile.

Peter had seen that smile inumerous times, even took photos of it a couple of times back when he still worked at the Bugle. It’s the smile Johnny uses when he wants to look his most charming, when he’s seen someone he wants to impress and is pulling out all the cards to do it. It’s his Hi-would-you-like-to-feel-my-flames smile, pun intended.

Today was a weird day for Peter.

“Aunt May, we have a visitor,” Peter shouted at the top of the stairs, taking Johnny and Johnny’s cake to the kitchen.

“Johnny! I’m so glad you came,” Aunt May said, giving Johnny one of her loving, bone-crushing hugs. She had great strength for such a tiny woman. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Only if I’m not too much of a bother, Mrs. Parker,” Johnny replied, smiling cheekily like some kind of pre-teen boy who knows how to play all the adults. He probably was that boy, owner of every heart in town with his cute dimples and big brown eyes.

“Nonsense, we love to have you,” she said, patting him on the cheek before she turned around, “Peter, honey, can you and Johnny start on the dinner while I go run to Mrs. Johnson's house and give her the presents? The roast beef’s in the fridge, ready to go in the oven, and the potatoes are in the cupboard beneath the sink.”

“Sure, no problem, Aunt May. We’ll take care of it,” Peter got her coat while she got the presents and kissed her on the cheek before she left.

Peter got the roast beef while Johnny grabbed the potatoes, and without either of them meaning to, an awkward silence fell upon the room. It felt the air was too dense to breathe, growing thicker with every second that passed without either of them saying anything, and every step they took created more friction between them.

It was weird, that’s what it was. They weren’t quiet people by nature and moving around Johnny in silence felt almost alien to Peter. The Human Torch and Spider-Man were known for their banter and the easy way they talked in the field, and not even Peter revealing his secret identity to the Four had changed that. In fact, if it had done anything, it had strengthened his bond with them, as corny as it sounded.

And that was the issue, wasn’t it? Because Peter had fallen for Johnny headfirst like an Olympic diver, and it was stupid, everything about being a superhero and getting closer to other people was stupid, but he was sure he wasn’t the only idiot in the room.

Johnny being there proved that. Peter had seen the news, just two days ago the Fantastic Four were in Europe dealing with a Dr. Doom. The rest of the Four were still there, bureaucracy taking its time, but Johnny had somehow managed to fly back in time to join the Parkers and MJ for dinner on Christmas Eve. In Peter’s world, that counted, a lot, and for the first time since they’d met, Peter decided he needed to find out once and for all if this mattered to Johnny as much as it did to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, putting down the spices he’d been laying on the roast beef and looking at Johnny in the eye.

“I’m peeling the potatoes?” Johnny asked, staring at Peter like he was a madman.

Peter shook his head. “No, I mean here, Johnny. What are you doing here?”

“Look, Pete,” Johnny said, putting down the potato peeler and turning towards Peter, “if you want me to leave—”

“I don’t want you to leave! That’s the problem!” Peter interrupted, forcing himself to speak more quietly after his outburst, “I want the exact opposite of you leaving and I need to know if we’re on the same page or not, because I’m tired of not knowing. I’m so damn tired.”

Peter leaned against the wall and let his head fall beneath his shoulders, pushing his hair up with his hands out of nervous habit. He heard Johnny move around the kitchen, take three careful steps towards Peter until Johnny was right there in Peter’s space, lifting Peter’s head up with one of his hands.

“We’ve known each other for five years—” Johnny said, interrupted again by Peter.

“Six—”

Johnny ignored him. “I think it’s safe to say I’m not going anywhere, Webhead.”

Peter grinned at the use of his name and ducked his head again, this time resting it on Johnny’s shoulder. “You could have called, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere, I promise you.”

“Thanks, Matchsticks,” Peter said, laughing a little. “I’m not going anywhere either.”

He felt Johnny’s hands skirt beneath his shirt and press against his muscles back, warm, always so warm, and was glad Johnny couldn’t see him blush like this.

They stayed like that for a little while, Johnny rubbing comforting circles on Peter’s back and Peter rubbing a line back and forth across Johnny’s hipbones. He’d never felt warmer, but they needed to separate sometime soon unless they wanted to explain themselves to Aunt May, and Peter thought it was still a bit too early for that. With great effort, Peter eased himself back and put some space between then.

“Aunt May should be coming back soon and we still need to—” he tried to say, interrupted rudely by Johnny’s mouth on his.

Not the best way to kiss someone for the first time, but definitely there are the top.

“I’ve been meaning to do that for so long, you have no idea,” Johnny said, grinning against Peter’s mouth.

“I think I have an inkling,” Peter replied. The next second, one of the reindeers fell off the roof, and Peter had to go up there to put it back in place. The whole time, Johnny stood on the ground with his arms wide open to catch Peter in case he fell.

Christmas had always been Peter’s favorite time of the year.


End file.
